MLB.com's Carrie Muskat has been covering Major League Baseball since 1981 and is the author of "Banks to Sandberg to Grace: Five Decades of Love and Frustration with the Cubs." You can follow her on Twitter @CarrieMuskat. Here, she blogs about the Cubs.

About last night …

Lou Piniella met with the media before Friday’s game to try to explain what happened in the eighth inning the night before. After Bobby Scales homered, which closed the gap to 2-1, the Dodgers replaced Randy Wolf with right-handed reliever Ramon Troncoso. Jake Fox pinch-hit for Andres Blanco, and singled. Koyie Hill was on deck to bat for pitcher Randy Wells, and kept looking back to the dugout for a signal. He didn’t see anyone call him back so he stepped up to the plate.

“Usually the umpire looks in and we give him the sign to put the batter into the ballgame,” Piniella said Friday. “We couldn’t get [umpire Mark Wegner’s] attention, we couldn’t get Hill’s attention — we tried — and Hill got in the batter’s box and that was it. The umpire said that signified a position change.”

Piniella said they had sent Hill to the on-deck circle as a decoy, just in case the Dodgers chose to bring in a lefty. Kosuke Fukudome was ready to hit against Troncoso.

“I am certainly not going to hit Hill ahead of Fukudome or [Micah] Hoffpauir with a right-hander in the ballgame,” Piniella said. “First of all, the other two I’ve used in that category, and second of all, he’s my only backup catcher. It’s something that shouldn’t have happened.”

Fukudome walked, Alfonso Soriano struck out, and Ryan Theriot hit into a double play to end the inning. And that’s the rest of the story.

— Carrie Muskat

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2 Comments

Isn’t the rest of the story since Hill entered the batter’s box and the Ump indicating that was indeed a position change hill was then unavailable as the back up catcher? If that is the case, another indication that Hendry’s lack of concentration in rubbing off on Lou, and now Hill.
Oh c’mon all you Hendry backers…I’ve gotta get my zingers in whenever I can…just venting.

The article says Hill was looking back to the dugout for a signal and didn’t see any and that Lou was trying to get Hill’s attention and couldn’t. Do those guys not know what each other looks like? I would think being in the same dugout for 2 months would allow them to recognize each other.

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